Sunday, October 10, 2010

A Sad Week for NZ

This previous week the small island nation of New Zealand finally achieved it's lifelong dream of making it onto BBC World Service ... for being a nation harboring the boring, racist dullard Paul Henry and for his remarks about whether our next Governor General would "look" and "sound" more like a real New Zealander (you know, not a darkie!).

Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, a horrifying percentage of New Zealanders support Henry and his 'calling a spade a spade' approach and are now heralding him as a martyr to the PC brigade. He's resigned, but I'm fairly sure (and terrified) he'll be doing something else, and perhaps worse, soon. Maybe a Paul Henry travel show.

My mom, a German-born dual citizen, made this interesting remark about the whole debacle: "You know, within a few years of arriving in New Zealand, when I was filling out the census forms, I could tick the "NZ European" box. It's crazy, there is "NZ European" and "Maori", but even if you're a fifth generation Chinese New Zealander, you just have to tick "Chinese". There's no "NZ Chinese", or even "NZ Samoan" for that matter." Wow mom, like usual, you're awesome and pointing out once again how institutions perpetuate Henry's way of thinking about what constitutes a New Zealander.

I haven't seen a census form in a few years, but I'd be really amazed if it had changed. And if there was an effort to change it, it would have to be done undemocratically.

p.s. People who think Paul Henry is a comedian, need to get out more, get funnier friends and watch better comedy (I recommend: Stephen Fry, John Safran and Margaret Cho).